Those Who Bring Good News of Good Things

This is the next two verses, but I want to go back and review the previous verses. And so I just got the last part of this verse. And you know, this is one of the places where this word yulanzo, I don't know if I'll be able to pronounce it, yulanzo, basically the gospel, is translated good news, so you could read it. those who bring the gospel of good tidings. I noticed that Jim's translation kind of did that, which would be very accurate. So this is about that, but there's so much more that builds up to that. So let's start here. So this is from last week. I kind of added to this summary.

So back in verses 1 to 5, kind of really briefly, 1 through 5 talks about This was man's way, the Jews' way of seeking out God. How does man seek out God? Well, they seek out God by their own devices, if you will. They seek out God, even though they got instructions from God, they wanted to live by a law, by a rule, not by a relationship. And man was seeking to establish his own righteousness, not knowing about God's righteousness, and the verse says, they had a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.

And you could say that's one of the hallmarks of religion today. They may have a zeal for God, but they have not looked at the knowledge that we have from God's Word to see how they should worship God, or how should they come to God. So now in verses 6 through 13, Paul presents this as God's way of making man acceptable to Him.

So it breaks down into the first part, we're going to review again. God's way is available. It's near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart. Beautiful phraseology, we're going to look at that again a little bit. Then next, from 9 through 13, Paul presents the conditions under which a man can be made acceptable to God. And then the last part, which is going to be the new stuff, there are kind of five things. about salvation, the hearing of salvation, the believing of salvation, the calling, the preaching, calling on you could say, preaching and being sent. We'll look at that in detail. Okay, so here's the first three verses, I'll just read them again.

The it here is, it says, but what does it say? It is, based on the context, look back in the previous verses, I think verse six has it, it's a righteousness based on faith. So you could say, but what does the righteousness based on faith say? The word is near you, it's in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Just wonderful verses, but notice the kind of word pairs. Verse eight has mouth and heart, and we know from what we talked last week, if it's in your mouth, it was oral culture, if it's in your mouth, it's in your heart. If it's in your heart, it's in your mouth. That's synonymous sayings. So then he goes on to nine, he talks about confessing and believing. Then he flips it, believing and confessing in 10. So believing and confessing are similar terms, similar ideas.

So here's a chart that I got from Chester McCauley, and I had to listen, you know, he doesn't send me emails. Chester has gone to be with the Lord, I don't know, a long time ago. He doesn't send me emails. So if Mike and I want to get a chart from Chester McCauley, we have to listen very carefully. So this is my listening very carefully.

So let me start off with saying that the header for this chart I'm sure you guys are familiar with what's called Hebrew poetry parallelism. We're going to start into Micah here soon in our class. I'm not sure if it has, maybe we'll see that, maybe we'll see some parallelism. An example of Hebrew poetry parallelism is like Psalm 2.

It has, Why are the nations in an uproar? That's the first statement. And the second statement, and the people devise a vain thing. Well, those are very similar statements, just kind of a little shade differently. So what Chester McCauley proposes here is that you can look at verses 8 through 10 in that way. Column 1 will be one statement. Column 2 will be a different statement, but along the same line.

And then there's a result of that. So let's start off here. So the first statement is, the word is in your mouth. A corollary statement is the word is in your heart. And that makes sense if we've been talking about the word and the heart are similar statements. And the result is God's word is available. It's in your mouth, it's in your heart.

Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart, you'll be saved. Confess with your mouth, believe with your heart. There are similar ways of looking at the way we obtain salvation. Then lastly, with a mouth, he or we confess. With a heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness and salvation. Now notice one thing. All the words kind of line up. Mouth, the verbal aspect lines up first. The middle part is a nonverbal response, right? In your heart, you know that within yourself.

And then there's a result of that. So this is sort of an aspect of looking at those verses from a parallelism between that. So it kind of helps out. And we're going to see another group of words coming up shortly here again. Okay, hopefully that was helpful. So let's go on. So here's last week's verse. Verses.

For the Scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. for whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved so notice in those verses there you have another pair of words you have believe coupled with call on so this pair is going to be a little bit different and after I looked at this some more this pair is going to be defined or explained more in depth in verse 14 whereas the other ones kind of that's what Paul said in 8 through 10, now in 11 through 13 and 14 he's going to explain what's the concept of calling on and believing and there's actually more words that go along with that. What is that about? What are the details of that?

Okay, so let's start here. And this is from last week, for the scripture says, so this quote here, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed, is a quote originally from Isaiah 28 but also quoted in 9.33. And it's a negative of the word for disappointed. So it's not to shame, to dishonor, or disgrace. So in the future, you will never be put to shame or turned away by God. That's kind of the idea. God will never be ashamed. You'll never be disgraced or put away.

And it's whoever. This word's going to come up quite a few times. And let me just put my other bullet up here. It's a Greek word, pas, P-A-S. And it's an all-inclusive word, it's everyone, none excluded. So possibly used to denote that salvation is available to everyone. It'll be the whosoevers, as I like to call it, the whosoevers. And it's gonna translate whosoever or all in about four cases here, we'll see. So that word's gonna be used a lot.

For the scripture says, all mankind, everyone included, who believes in Him, and we saw this last, I had a whole page of verses here, this is just one of those. Believing in Him is that phrase used so many times. So in John 6, 40, for this is the will of my Father that everyone who believes in the Son, who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life. One of many, many verses where it talks about believing in Him, putting your faith in Him. Okay, so we go on to the next verse.

So it says, For there is no distinction, no divide or difference between Jew and Greek, we know this from this verse in Galatians, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Okay? So no distinction between Jew and Gentile, for the same Lord is Lord over all.

So this is kind of interesting and we looked at this last week. Therefore, so this verse talks about that God has made the Lord Jesus Christ both Lord and Christ and Messiah. He's both the Lord of all and he's the Messiah. And he said that's the one who you crucify. This is from Acts. And here we have our encompassing word again, over all, none excluded. It's actually the second of four times. And then this verse actually kind of speaks to my next point. And the word which he sent to the sons of Israel, preaching through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. Okay, so let's look at this. Abounding in riches.

So I like, I don't do this just to be a smarty pants. I do this because I put the inner linear up here and say, why does Roger always do that? He's not satisfied with the American standard. Isn't that good enough for him? Anyway, the reason I do this is because in some cases interlinear or we may have the verb brought out more clearly and that's why I'm doing it so I can talk about it, not because I'm trying to show off.

Okay, with my little diatribe. Okay, being rich, it's interesting, this verb tense, it's present tense. God is being rich. He's not just, oh, I'm rich. Okay, that's the end of the story. He's being rich. His riches are being poured out upon His creation, especially upon the one that have called on Him. That's kind of the sense of this verse. Being rich, continually rich, and who is it for? Here's our word again, pas in the Greek. All, none excluded, but He's gonna qualify that. It's gonna be all, being rich, all who are calling on Him.

So this word, this is the one of about three times we're gonna look at this word. This is the prepositional form. And actually this time it's in the present tense. So this kind of has a sense of you're calling upon the name in adoration of the Lord. You're continually doing that. You're continually doing that as middle voice for your own. You're continually calling out to Him.

He's abounding in riches for all those who are in a relationship with Him, so to speak. They're calling out, they're engaged in fellowshipping with the Lord. being rich, all calling on Him. Him is a person, not a thing, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the recipients of the riches of God's grace are the ones calling out to a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then here's a verse, and this verse will speak to my next point too.

Acts 22.16, and now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on His name. Okay.

So now we come to the, this has been said, this is kind of one of the key verses in this section, one of the many key verses, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So this actually is a quote from Joel, and this verse is talking about Israel, it's talking about basically, it's talking about the day of the Lord. So it says, and it will come about, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered for Mount Zion, for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be no escape, the Lord has said, even among the survivors of whom the Lord has called." So this is a call for deliverance, but Paul's going to use that verse in the time he wrote the letter and also in our day to call out a different aspect So here's just kind of a comparison, which was kind of pointed out as I studied for this. If you think about it, and he uses our word pas, all, none excluded, all were sin, all have sinned, every person on the planet that comes on this planet, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But now he says, I use interlinear here for a purpose, for everyone, pas, whoever calls on the Lord's name will be saved. So God is a gracious God. All have sinned, but all can be saved. Just a beautiful picture here. Okay, so let's go on.

So the last part of this. Call on, here's our word again. Now this time, this is going to be, I'm just going to put it down here. This is in the verb form. and to call upon by way of adoration. But the idea is to call upon independence upon. So since it's aorist, you can think of it as an event. So this is an event. You're calling upon as an event in time. Time is not here. I better be careful. It's an event. I'll stick with that.

Middle voice is for your benefit. for oneself on your behalf and it's a subjunctive you may or you may not do it so it says for whoever calls on the name of the Lord so the idea is is calling needfully independence upon someone The name of the Lord, the name of the Lord in scripture or the name of Him kind of talks about the totality of who Christ is, the sum total of who He is and what He's known by. And we'll be saved, so and so. the salvation granted by God on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ. So this is going to be used. He makes this statement, whoever will be called on the name of the Lord will be saved, but now he's going to qualify that.

He's going to qualify what he means by that when we go to 14. Okay, so here's today's verses finally. After all that, we're to today. Okay, so here's today's verse. And I wanted to build it up here to make sure we had it kind of all together. So he's gonna, I'll tell you, I have a little discussion about this in a second. How will they, I'm sorry, how then will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?

Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings of good news. OK, so some observations or introduction to this. So we're going to have four rhetorical questions. And the thing to remember in a rhetorical question, the answer to the rhetorical question is in the question.

So you should come away with the answer. You should. Hopefully, if you don't, I'm going to tell you what it is. So I'm not going to give you a chance. At the end, I'm going to tell you, this is the answer to this question. And you guys are good. You'll pick it up fast. Okay. All right.

So we're back to the whoever's again. It's great that God's involved in the whoever's. That's all of us. The whoever's are all of us. But he's going to tell us about What are the details? What are the details of our salvation? And this is one of the few places where we kind of see, I don't want to say a formula, but we see a pattern or a flow of what happens, and I'm going to try to relate it to myself here when we get down to that point, but we see a flow or a pattern here. Paul is made, and his statement in 13 was a dramatic statement, So now he's going to give us the details of the operation or how salvation works, if you will. And he wants to do this because he wants to be absolutely sure that the Jew knows that the Gentiles are included in salvation, which was a hard pill to swallow for the Jews.

That was a tough one to really handle. Okay, so let's get on to the verse. So the first rhetorical question, So I wasn't satisfied with the, you know, once again, Roger's not satisfied, you know, what are you gonna do with him? Okay, but this, the reason I wasn't satisfied. because it didn't bring out the verb the way I wanted them to bring out the verb.

So it reads in the edited interlinear, which means I shift the words around. You know, Mike's good. Mike doesn't do what I do. At least he hasn't yet. He'll quote the interlinear word for word while I flip it around. And I do that not on my own intelligence. The interlinear folks have put one, two, three, and they show the order it would read to make sense. So I followed their suggestions. So here we go.

How how then may they call on the one in whom they did not believe? So you'll see so how then actually is a emphatic term is how is that possible? It's like How is that possible Johnny you got into that ice cream? You know whatever is is that is that it's there's intent. How is it possible then?

They it's the whoever's all And here's the verb along, it's epikaleo, a lot of words for one small. May they call on the one. So it's the same, we saw this earlier back in 13, to call upon by way of adoration. The idea is to call upon, dependence upon. And this happens to be the same verb tense as previous in 13.

It's an event in a person's life, subjunctive, maybe you will, maybe you won't, middle voice for your own benefit. So the idea is how will they call upon the one, okay, here's the rest of the verse, in whom they did not believe. In whom is a person? The Lord Jesus Christ. So it's a fact. So I'm going to kind of answer the question here, I'll do it again.

It's a fact they didn't believe, right? The upshot of that verse is that you can't believe. If you read it carefully, how then will they call on, I'll read the top part, how then will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? So, they didn't believe from this verse. Let's hear a few comments. Believing, from this verse, believing precedes calling on the Lord. Calling on the name of the Lord indicates you have believed on the Lord. So the assumed answer is they cannot call on Him.

So it's going to seem confusing here. I'm going to try to make it unconfusing. So that's question one. Let's go to question two, which is really important in this. Question two, how might they believe Him of whom they did not hear? Okay, same kind of thing, emphatic. How is that possible? And here again, I use the full number of words for the pistou, may they believe in him, to believe, to be persuaded. And it's subjunctive again, maybe you will, maybe you won't.

So the points here are, believing is possible, it's a possible response of hearing. If someone hears the gospel, he may respond to it, right? If you have not heard the facts of the gospel, you cannot believe them. Okay? So the assumed answer, you cannot hear him.

Okay. So I'm going to try to make this... So here's the key points. Here's the takeaway from 13, 14 A and B. This is the takeaway. and Merriman did an incredible job here. Calling on the name of the Lord means you have believed and then called. So here's the flow. So Paul's reasoning is you hear about his name, then you believe on his name, then you call on his name.

So it sounds a little bit like a formula, but I don't think it is. Think about this for a second. How many were, raise your hands, how many were adults when you met the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Raise your hand, I'm just kind of curious. Okay. Alright, I was too. And this kind of fits the pattern, but one of the questions is, what's the timing? What's the timing of this? The hearing about His name, believing on His name, calling on His name. Is that a long time or a short time?

Well, I'll give you the negative first. When I was a teenager in Miami, Florida, at the first Christian church, there's a good chance they presented the gospel. I don't know. I don't remember. But I didn't hear it, right? And by hearing, I mean I understood what it meant so I could respond. I didn't hear it.

Fast forward almost 40 years, when I was driving in my car, in Harrogate, England to work at the U.S. base and I said, I'm a sinner. Well, wait a minute, if I'm a sinner, I need a savior. I called on the Lord. To me that happened just like that. But prior to that, two years I'd been in the Bible study, going to church, all that time built up and all the time before that, took all that time period until at some point in time I called I'm sorry, I heard, I believed, I called. So to me that makes sense. Anyway, that's my personal story about that. Okay, so then after this, Paul's gonna present. If that's a pattern, hearing, believing, and calling, then we need somebody to get that message out, right? You need a communicator, a speaker of the good news. Okay, and so hence the other questions.

How and how may they hear without one preaching? Again, emphatic. And how is it possible? Emphatic. May they hear, akuo, hear, listen. And the may tells us it's subjunctive. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. One preaching is the idea to herald, to proclaim. And this is kind of a cool word. It requires a teller, a speaker, a communicator. Someone has to proclaim or speak out the message to announce as a herald. And it kind of has a public aspect, but I kind of, in thinking about this, it seems to me that we all are qualified for this role as a proclaimer, as a preacher, as a herald. Every believer, because he's been through that process already, he's qualified to do this.

So in this case, the assumed answer to this question, right, is they can't hear without a preacher. You gotta have a preacher, is the bottom line here from this one. But this rhetorical question is, you can only hear if you don't have a preacher, okay?

Then the last rhetorical question, how might they preach? And one of the reasons, the may in there is, may they preach is why I did this. May they preach if they are not sent? Another emphatic, how is it possible? May they preach? To be a herald, a proclaimer?

Once again, it's subjunctive. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. So God the Holy Spirit is active in sending good news tellers. This is from here. I like that, good news tellers. We're good news tellers. Accurate proclamation cannot occur except by one being sent by God.

So I don't think we have to stay up nights. I'll give you my situation in my family. We have several people in our family, both sides, both Vani's side and my side that aren't saved. I don't feel I have to get on my knees and say, Lord, please send me to my relatives.

I just do it, because I love them. I want them to be with the Lord. I want them to know Him. So I think the proclaimer part just is something that every true believer wants to do with his mission field, wherever that might be. So the answer to this question is that they will not preach if they're not sent.

Okay, so then the last part, the B part of 15 is, so this is kind of the summary, just kind of explain to me how wonderful it is to have this going on. So it says, and it's from Isaiah, it's from this verse. And it's in the Bolton and also in the handout.

How lovely on the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and bring good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns. So it's how beautiful are the feet of those, literally the ones, So a couple of comments about beautiful in the feet. And the idea of beautiful is the idea of full blooming, mature, vigorous. And it's fitting. It's fitting that they should come not by baby steps. They should come by swift feet, by the feet of those emphasized approaching rapidly by the feet. That's how it's going to be delivered, by the feet.

OK? the ones who bring the good news of good things. Bring good news is to proclaim the good news, and here's our word, Eugon Galitzo, which is almost all issues of the good news concerning the Son of God as proclaimed in the gospel. And then Paul says, but even if we or any angel from heaven should preach to you A gospel contrary to what we have preached, let him be accursed. Paul was a messenger of this, he was the one that God especially set aside to proclaim the gospel and tell us what the gospel is. It's of the good things, it describes the character of being good or effective or beneficial. It's the gospel of the good things. And then lastly, a few final thoughts. Let me just get here real quick here.

Okay, so the first point is that if it is, if is, boy that's a lot, it is as if Paul were expanding pause, the whosoever. So what this is saying here is that Paul, he took that, the whosoever is the 13, whosoever call upon the name of the Lord, and he expands that, he shows that God is providing salvation to all of us. and justifying the universal preaching of the gospel, which was in itself a stumbling block for the Jews. Everyone, the whosoevers, who invokes the name of the Lord shall be saved, and therefore the condition of such invocation must be put within the reach of everyone." So I was just thinking, I wrote it down here in listening to Macaulay and other people. We had the whosoever will may come, and then what we learned today is Therefore, all should hear. Whosoever will may come. Therefore, all should hear. All should hear this message. Okay, so let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day. Thank you for the blessings we have. We thank you for your word. Thank you for just the marvelous provision you've made for all to be saved. All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Thank You for that. And also it reminds me of another verse, whosoever will may come. You're all about including all those who desire to know You to come to You. We thank You for that. In Christ's name, Amen.